The Sheen of the Silk

by Anne Perry

  Palombara was touched with an amazement of pity for this very human man in his gorgeous robes and his still ruined palace. “Majesty,” he said humbly, “may I suggest a more final recognition of Byzantium’s union with Rome, one upon which no enemy, either through malice or stupidity, can cast doubt?”

  Michael looked at him with cold suspicion. “What have you in mind, Bishop Palombara?”

  Palombara found himself hesitating before he could force the words to his mouth. “Send to Rome the icon of the Holy Virgin that you carried above you as you entered into Constantinople after the exile,” he answered finally. “Let it come to Rome, as a symbol of the union of the two great Christian Churches of the world, willing to stand side by side against the tide of Islam rising around us. Then Rome will forever be mindful of you, and that you are the bastion of Christ against the infidel. And if we let you fall, then the enemies of God will be at our own gates.”

  Michael was silent, but there was no anger, no will to fight the impossible or make a show of injured dignity. Michael was a realist. He was neatly caught. The irony of it was not lost on him, but he who had thought himself so clever was utterly out of his depth.

  “Look after her well,” Michael answered at last. “She will not forgive you if you defile her. That is what you should fear, Palombara: not me, not Byzantium, nor even the connivings of Rome or the floods of Islam. Fear God, and the Holy Virgin.”

  A week later, the ancient icon that had saved Byzantium centuries ago was delivered to the beautiful house where Palombara and Vicenze lodged. They stood in one of the large reception rooms and watched as it was unpacked in silence.

  Vicenze was overwhelmed by Palombara’s success. He stood in the sunlight streaming in through the windows, and his pale face was bleak.

  Looking at him, Palombara saw a rage and envy that was real.

  Then, as Michael’s man worked on the packing, Palombara saw a new expression enter Vicenze’s face, a vision beyond his own failure to gain the icon.

  The last wrapping fell away, and each man silently leaned closer to gaze on the somber, beautiful face and, as close to it as they were, the marks of time and weather visible in the minute cracks in the paint, the pinhole marks in the gold leaf. The banner itself was rubbed smooth by many hands, and the oil from human skin over the generations had polished the surfaces of the wood where it was held.

  Vicenze opened his mouth to say something, then changed his mind. Palombara did not even look at him. The chill dreamlessness of Vicenze’s face would infuriate him.

  It was simple enough to hire a ship. Palombara made the agreement with one of the many captains in the port of Constantinople. Vicenze oversaw the carter who was actually carrying the icon, which was even more carefully packed in an outer wooden crate. It was discreetly marked so they could identify it easily, but no one else could guess the contents.

  They took little with them, not wanting to give notice to servants or the ever present watchers and listeners that they might not be returning for some time. In fact, it was possible they might be elevated to the cardinal’s purple and not return at all. Palombara regretted leaving behind some of the exquisite artifacts he had purchased while here, but it was necessary in order to create the illusion that he was merely visiting the dockside and would return before dusk.

  However, as he arrived on the quay, he saw with disbelief their ship pull away. The water churned around the hull as it gathered speed, oars dipping rhythmically until they should be beyond the harbor shelter and find the soft wind to fill the sails. Vicenze stood on the ship near the rail. The sun in his pale hair was like a halo, and his wide, flat mouth was smiling.

  Palombara broke into a sweat of blind fury. He had never experienced defeat so total and so consuming that no other emotion was possible.

  “My lord bishop,” a voice said, sounding concerned, “are you ill, sir?”

  Astonished, Palombara looked at the speaker. It was the captain of the ship, to whom he had not yet paid the money, believing that that fact alone would hold him loyal. “They’ve taken your ship,” he said harshly, flinging out his arm to point into the bay where the hull of it was already growing smaller in the distance.

  “No, sir,” the captain said incredulously. “My ship is over there, waiting for you and your cargo.”

  “I just saw Bishop Vicenze on board.” He gestured out to sea again. “There!”

  The captain shaded his eyes and followed Palombara’s gaze. “That’s not my ship, sir. That is Captain Dandolo’s.”

  Palombara blinked. “Dandolo? He took the package onto his own ship?”

  “He had a big package, sir. Several feet high, and wide, about the size you described to me.”

  “Bishop Vicenze brought it?”

  “No, sir. Captain Dandolo brought it himself, sir. Will you still be wanting to sail to Rome, sir?”

  “Yes, by God in heaven, I will!”

  Sixty-nine

  CONSTANTINE STRODE THROUGH THE HARD, BRIGHT SUN to visit Theodosia Skleros, the only daughter of Nicholas Skleros, one of the wealthiest men to have returned to Constantinople after the exile. None of the family wavered in their devotion to the Orthodox Church and consequently in their loathing of Rome and all its abuse of power.

  Theodosia was married to a man who in Constantine’s opinion was worthy of neither her high intelligence nor, more important, her great spiritual beauty. Still, since he was apparently her choice, Constantine treated him with all the courtesy he would grant to any man with such an exceptional wife.

  He found Theodosia at prayer. He knew she would be alone at this hour, and no caller would be more welcome than he.

  She greeted him with a smile of pleasure and perhaps surprise also. Usually he sent a message before he came.

  “Bishop Constantine,” she said warmly, coming into the spare, elegant room with its classical murals of urns and flowers. She was not a lovely woman, although she walked with grace, and her voice had a richness to it, a care and clarity of diction that made listening to her a joy.

  “Theodosia…” He smiled, already the weight of his anger easing. “You are most gracious to receive me when I took no care to ask if it was convenient.”

  “It is always convenient, my lord,” she replied, and she invested it with such sincerity that he could not doubt it. Standing here in the shadow away from the harsh sunlight, she reminded him of Maria, the only girl he had ever loved. It was not that their faces were alike; Maria had been beautiful. At least that was how he remembered her, but they had been little more than children. His elder brothers were young men, handsome and bawdy, feeling their new strength and exercising it, not always with kindness.

  It was just after Constantine was castrated. His body ached now at the remembrance of it: not of the physical pain, but of the emotional shame. Not that the pain was negligible, but the wound had healed in time. He wished that had been true for Niphon too, but it had not. He had been the youngest brother, confused by what had happened to him, not understanding. His wound had become infected. Constantine had never been able to forget his white face as he lay on the bed, the sweat-soaked sheets damp around him. Constantine had sat with him, holding his limp hand, talking to him all the time so he would know he was never alone. He was still a child, soft-skinned, slender-shouldered, and so frightened. He had looked so small when he was dead, as if it had never been possible he would grow up.

  They had all grieved for him, but Constantine the most. Maria was the only one who had understood how deeply it had cut into all that he was.

  She had been the most beautiful girl in the town. All the young men had wanted to court her. But it seemed she had chosen brash, charming Paulus, Constantine’s eldest brother.

  Then suddenly, without anyone knowing the reason, she had turned away from him and wanted instead to be with Constantine. Theirs had been a pure friendship, asking nothing but understanding, the joy of sharing both beauty and pain, the exhilaration of ideas, and sometimes, on wo
nderful occasions, laughter.

  She had wished to become a nun; she had confided that to him, softly, with a shy smile. But her family forced her to marry into a wealthy family with whom they had ties, and Constantine had never seen Maria again, nor had he ever learned what had happened to her.

  She remained for him the ideal not only of womanhood, but of love itself. Now as Theodosia smiled at him in her quiet, grave way and offered him honey cakes and wine, he saw in her dark eyes something of Maria again, an echo of the same trust in him. A peace settled inside him so sweet, he began to find again the courage to fight harder, with new power, more belief.

  It gave him the confidence to try a more dangerous path, one that repelled him, and yet in Theodosia’s piety and unquestioning devotion to the faith, he understood the necessity of using every weapon within his reach.

  It was strange to visit Zoe’s house afterward. Constantine had no delusions that she welcomed him out of anything but an intense curiosity to know what he could want with her.

  He had forgotten how striking she was. Although she was in her late seventies, still she walked with her head high and the same grace in her steps, the suppleness of body he remembered.

  He greeted her cautiously, accepting hospitality in order to make it clear that he intended the visit to have meaning.

  “You must be aware of the danger we are in, perhaps even more than I am,” he began. “The emperor sees it as so imminent that he has taken the icon of the Virgin which he carried in triumph and sent it to Rome. He told me that was to preserve it, should the city be burned again. But he has not told the people this. Presumably he is afraid of panic.”

  “All times require care, my lord bishop,” she answered, although there was no belief or acceptance in her face. “We have many enemies.”

  “We were preserved, in spite of the earthly strength of our enemies,” he replied, “because we believed. God cannot save us if we will not trust Him. We have an advocate in the Blessed Virgin. I know that you know this, which is why I came to you, even though we are not friends, and I do not trust you in most things, I admit that. But in your love of Byzantium, and of the Holy Church we both believe in, I trust you with my life.”

  She smiled, as if some faint amusement overrode all that she heard in him, but her eyes were hot and still, and there was a color in her cheeks that owed nothing to art. Now was the time to tell her his purpose.

  “I trust you because we have a common cause,” he said again. “And therefore common enemies in the powerful families who, for one reason or another, support the union.”

  “What have you in mind, Your Grace-precisely?”

  “Information, of course,” he replied. “You have weapons you cannot use, but I can. Now is the time, before it becomes too late.”

  “Is it not already too late?” she said coolly. “We have had at least this much common purpose for years.”

  “Because you will not part with the kind of information I want while it is still of more value to you,” he replied. “You cannot use it with impunity. I can.”

  “Possibly. I can think of nothing I know which will enlarge the Kingdom of God.” There was a flicker of amusement in her eyes. “But perhaps you have more in mind than reduction of the realm of the devil?”

  He felt a chill. “My enemy’s enemy is my friend,” he quoted.

  “And which particular enemy are you referring to?” she asked.

  “I have but one cause,” he replied. “The preservation of the Orthodox Church.”

  “For which we need also to preserve the city,” she pointed out. “What is your plan, Bishop?”

  He looked at her unflinchingly. “To persuade the great families who support the union to change their allegiance from expediency to trust in God. If they will not do so willingly, then I shall, in the interest of their souls, remind them of some of the sins of which I can absolve them, before God, if not before the public-and of course of what awaits those without forgiveness.”

  “A little late,” she said.

  “Would you have given me such weapons earlier, when Charles of Anjou was not preparing to sail?”

  “I am not sure if I will now. Perhaps I would prefer to use them myself.”

  “You have power to wound, just as I have, Zoe Chrysaphes,” he said with a slight smile. “But I have power to heal, and you do not.” He named three families.

  She hesitated, studying his face, then something seemed to amuse her, and she told him what he needed to know.

  Seventy

  PALOMBARA ARRIVED IN ROME ONLY DAYS AFTER VICENZE. The voyage had been good enough for time and seamanship, but the taste of defeat had robbed him of any pleasure at all. He had landed at Ostia, and even the briefest inquiry had told him Vicenze had beaten him by at least twenty-four hours.

  The pope and the cardinals were already assembled in the anteroom to the pope’s chambers in the Vatican Palace when Palombara strode in, still travel stained, his clothes shabby with dust and sweat. At any other time he could have been barred entrance in his disheveled state, but the buzz of excitement was in the air, as in a summer lightning storm when the wind was dry, prickling on the skin like the touch of a hundred flies. People started to speak and then stopped. Eyes darted everywhere, seeing him and smiling. Did he imagine the mockery, or was it only too real?

  The huge crate stood with its wood neatly opened; only the cloth covering protected the icon of the Blessed Virgin that Michael Palaeologus had carried in triumph when his people had returned home.

  Vicenze stood a little to one side of it, his face burning with victory, his pale eyes glittering. Only once did he look at Palombara, then away again, as though he were insignificant, a man who had ceased to matter.

  A workman stepped forward at his signal. There was no other sound in the room, no rustle of heavy robes, no shifting of feet. Even the pope seemed to be holding his breath.

  The workman reached up and pulled off the protecting cloth.

  The pope and the cardinals craned forward. There was utter silence.

  Palombara looked, blinked, and stared. God Almighty! What met his gaze was not the exquisite features of the Virgin, but a riotous profusion of naked flesh, in exuberant, joyful detail and painted with great skill. The central figure was a smiling parody of the Virgin, but so overtly feminine that one could not look at it without a quickening of the pulse, a remembrance of the hot blood of passion. One lush breast was exposed, and her slender hand rested intimately on the groin of the man nearest to her.

  One of the less abstemious cardinals exploded with laughter and instantly tried to suffocate it in a fit of coughing.

  The pope’s face was scarlet, although there could have been more than one reason for that.

  Other cardinals choked. Someone snorted in disgust. Another laughed quite openly.

  Vicenze was white to the lips, his eyes as hectic as if he were consumed with fever on the edge of delirium.

  Palombara tried for a full minute to look as if he were not laughing, and failed. It was exquisite. He too owed someone a debt he would never be able to pay.

  Palombara had no choice but to go when Nicholas sent for him.

  The Holy Father’s expression was unreadable. “Explain yourself, Enrico,” he said very quietly. His voice trembled, and Palombara had no idea if the emotion all but choking him was fury or laughter.

  There was nothing to offer but the truth.

  “Yes, Holy Father,” he said piously. “I persuaded the emperor to send the icon to Rome. It arrived at the house we had taken for our stay in the city. It was unpacked in front of us, and it was quite definitely a very somber, very beautiful picture of the Virgin Mary. It was repacked in front of us, ready to ship.”

  “This tells me nothing,” Nicholas said dryly. “Who obtained it? You?”

  “Yes, Holy Father.”

  “And what did Vicenze do about it? Don’t tell me this is his revenge for your superiority? He could never have done this to himself. The
laughter will follow him to the grave, as well you know.” He leaned forward. “This looks a great deal more like your wit, Enrico. For which I shall pardon you…” The faintest twitch pulled the corner of his mouth, and with difficulty he controlled it. “If you return the icon of the Virgin to me forthwith. Discreetly, of course.”

  Nicholas might not have a towering faith with a light to lead Christendom, but he unquestionably had a sharp sense of humor, and to Palombara that was a grace sufficient to redeem him from almost any other failure.

  “Is it still in Constantinople?” Nicholas asked.

  “I don’t know, Holy Father, but I doubt it,” Palombara replied. “I think Michael was honest.”

  “Do you? Then I am inclined to accept that,” Nicholas said thoughtfully. “You are a cynical man. You manipulate others, so you expect them to do the same to you.” He raised his eyebrows. “Don’t look so crushed! So where is the icon, whoever has it? I do not require to know, if such knowledge would be embarrassing.”

  “My guess would be Venice,” Palombara replied. “The captain who brought Vicenze and the icon to Rome was a Venetian-Giuliano Dandolo.”

  “Ah! Yes, I have heard of him. A descendant of the great doge,” Nicholas said quietly. “How very interesting.” He smiled. “When you return to Constantinople you will take a letter for me, in which I shall thank the emperor Michael for his gift of good faith and assure him that the union is regarded with the utmost gravity and honor by Rome.” He looked at Palombara steadily. “You will return to Byzantium, taking Vicenze with you.”

  Palombara was horrified at the thought.

  Nicholas saw his distress and chose to ignore it. “I do not want him here in Rome. I quite see that you do not want him, either, but I am pope, Enrico, and you are not-at least not yet. Take Vicenze. You still have work to do there. Charles of Anjou will sail, and then it will be too late to stop him. Perhaps you can find some Byzantine friend who will curb his excesses for you. Godspeed.”